In the news

John Cook, 43, faces felony theft charges after Monroe, La., police said he was recorded on video at a bingo parlor manipulating a game by handpicking the balls he wanted to play and then hiding the winner until he was ready to end the game.

Mike Moon, a state legislator from Ash Grove, Mo., sent a letter to Gov. Mike Parson asking that he bar the state from reinstalling a 10-foot-tall statue of Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture, on the Capitol dome, saying it represents a "false god."

Evenaud Julmeus, 30, was charged with child neglect after police in Haines City, Fla., said he abandoned a boy alone at night outside the then-closed city police station because he thought the boy might be gay, telling the youth "the police will find you a new home."

Pietro Ostuni, police chief of Piacenza, Italy, said experts are examining a painting found wrapped in a bag hidden in the walls of an art gallery to determine if it is Gustav Klimt's Portrait of a Lady, which was reported stolen after it disappeared in 1997.

Mary Coker, 46, a school administrator in Broward County, Fla., faces a demotion and a nearly $44,000 pay cut for wearing a flasher costume to school for Halloween, offending "children, staff and colleagues," including some who couldn't tell whether she was really naked under the coat.

Alidor Masingo, 35, of Kirksville, Mo., who pleaded guilty to attacking his wife with an ax in 2018 as children yelled for help, prompting three college students to hold Masingo for police, was sentenced to five years in prison.

Joe Ousalice, a British sailor who served 18 years in the Royal Navy, is getting his long service and good conduct medal returned after taking the Ministry of Defense to court over his claim that the medal was improperly confiscated when he revealed during a 1993 court martial proceeding that he is bisexual.

Matt Hastreiter, 42, of Lexington, Minn., charged with vehicular homicide in the death of a woman who was struck as she was walking to work, admitted drinking 11 shots of vodka in the hours before the crash, police said.

Erica Treadway, one of three people who entered an inactive West Virginia coal mine to steal copper but who had to be rescued when they became trapped inside, faces up to eight years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy and other counts.

A Section on 12/11/2019

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